ABSTRACT
From 1958, the Macmillan government pursued a more self-assured policy in Europe. Its chief aim was to achieve a durable arrangement with the Eastern bloc that would bolster Britain’s international position but also ease the financial strains that came with a large armed presence in Europe. Such an arrangement would have to address the German Question and would require the support and co-operation of the United States. British policy-makers over-estimated their own influence in Europe and under-estimated American opposition to concessions to the Soviets. Implicit in Macmillan’s strategy was the belief that, in order to achieve an understanding, West German goals with regard to reunification, frontiers and the GDR would have to be considerably modified. In part consequence of this, the FRG moved closer to de Gaulle’s France, and Britain became increasingly isolated on the European continent. The Berlin Crisis from 1958 encouraged this trend, and Macmillan’s attempt to use the Crisis to further his aims was to prove deleterious in the extreme to relations with the FRG.
